In this episode of the Contrarian Marketing podcast, we discuss the benefits of using LinkedIn to build a following or boost your career.We share tips on how to optimize your profile, engage with your audience, and create effective content. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

Influencer marketing has become an essential part of any marketing strategy. It involves partnering with individuals who have a significant following on social media platforms to promote a brand's products or services. However, finding the right influencers for your brand can be challenging. In this podcast episode, we discuss the importance of influencer marketing and how to approach it effectively. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.In this podcast, we compare Google's AI language model, Bard, to Microsoft's Bing. We look at the user experience, utility, and creative capabilities of both models through various scenarios.Bard has serious accuracy and reliability issues, and we don’t see a strategy for integration and monetization. Ultimately, Bing has a more effective approach to capitalizing on its head start and providing a seamless user experience.We really stress-tested Bard for this show and even went as far as asking it to create a commercial script for Donald Trump, but Bing's AI politely refused and told us it would not be appropriate.Well, listen for yourself…5 ways Bing is better than Bard* User Experience: Bing provides a smoother and more enjoyable user experience, allowing users to be precise or creative in their queries.* Citations: Bing offers citations for its answers, making it more reliable and trustworthy compared to Bard.* Answer Quality: Bing tends to give better and more accurate answers, while Bard sometimes makes up information or provides incorrect responses.* Responsiveness and Adaptability: Bing seems to move faster and improve more quickly, capitalizing on its head start in the AI language model space.* Monetization and Integration: Bing effectively connects users to monetized search results, while Google has not tied Bard's utility as well to its search ecosystem.Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.In this episode of the Contrarian Marketing podcast, we dive deep into the challenges of navigating marketing budget cuts, layoffs, and job hunting in the ever-changing tech landscape.We share our insights and experiences on how to make the most of shrinking budgets, renegotiate targets, and adapt to the new reality.This episode is sponsored by SEO Monitor Forecasting is one of the trickiest topics in the SEO industry, especially when you have to do it. SEOmonitor has created a tool to help you easily eliminate error-prone spreadsheets, unreliable data, and hard-to-maintain formulas. Simply choose your keywords and select your ranking goals to get estimated sessions & conversions. The forecastgin algorithm is completely transparent. Sign up now and get a 3-month free trial for simplified and accurate SEO forecasts!4 key strategies for successfully navigating marketing budget cuts:* Focus on what works: When making budget decisions, prioritize the marketing strategies that have proven to deliver results. This will help maximize the effectiveness of the budget you do have.* Renegotiate targets: If your budget is cut, be proactive in renegotiating your targets with stakeholders to set more realistic expectations.* Be specific and logical: Clearly communicate the impact of budget cuts on your forecasts and outcomes. Use data and logical reasoning to illustrate the consequences of reduced budgets.* Outsource: Find ways to work more efficiently with a smaller budget, such as utilizing contractors or freelancers instead of full-time employees to maintain flexibility and reduce costs.Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.We have opened a paid assistant position to get help with the pre and post-production of this podcast – so do reach out to us for more details.Also, if you have any good ideas on how to hack a budget, save money, or look better in recessionary times – share them in the comments!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.In this conversation, we discuss one of the hottest topics during the pandemic's shift to remote work: meetings.Meetings can be helpful in some cases, but they are often unnecessary and a waste of time. Even for those that are helpful, there is a big spectrum in efficiency based on how they’re run.The most common issues with meetings are:* Too many attendees* Lack of preparation* Unclear agendasPeople often feel obligated to attend meetings, even if they are not necessary or relevant to their work.Overall, the key points of the conversation are:* Meetings can be unproductive and inefficient, but they can also be beneficial if run properly.* Common issues with meetings include too many attendees, lack of preparation, and unclear agendas.* Good meeting hygiene includes being on time, taking good notes, preparing in advance, sticking to the agenda, and following up on action items. It's also important to be intentional about scheduling meetings and deciding whether they are necessaryTop tools for better meetings* Bubbles* Notion* Range* Coda* Otter AiTop 10 tips for better meetings* Have a clear goal and purpose for the meeting.* Set a definition of success or a definition of done for the meeting.* Prepare in advance, including sending out pre-read materials and an agenda.* Be on time and have good meeting etiquette.* Take notes during the meeting.* Follow up after the meeting with action items and hold people accountable.* Determine if a meeting is necessary or if information can be conveyed in an email.* Discourage multitasking during meetings to improve engagement.* Use tools such as Koda and Otter Ai to improve productivity during meetings.* Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of your meetings and make adjustments as needed.Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.We have opened a paid assistant position to get help with the pre and post-production of this podcast – so do reach out to us for more details.Also, if you have any good ideas on how to hack a budget, save money, or look better in recessionary times – share them in the comments!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and KevinThis episode has been sponsored by Bubbles: Fewer meetings, more work done This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Today we teach you how you can still score a strong marketing budget in a recession. We also cover:* How to cut a marketing budget the right way* How to make the most of your marketing budget* Hacks on saving money on your marketing spendsKey Takeaways* Know how your budget decision-maker ticks* Optimize your current campaigns for payback period* Reduce your ad budget for branded keywords* If your organization is facing a hiring freeze, propose to outsource those tasks to freelancers or contractors instead of employees* Narrow your focus down to best-performing market segments, geographies, product verticals, or customer segments.* Negotiate with your tool vendors for annual discounts, long-term contracts, or retainer prices* Repurpose the top 20% of the content or pages that are performing well.Understand the motivation behind the budget allocationEli advises how as a first step, one should understand the motivation of the person allocating the budget –“I think anybody who wants to be successful at really maximizing budget and maximizing their effectiveness is to understand the motivations of whoever is giving that directive.So, for a public company, it might be the investor, for a private company, it might be the VCs, for a very small company, it might be the small business owner. So, it really comes down to how you position yourself most effectively and utilize that budget so that person is the happiest and feels like you're achieving their goals. It's not about I saved you a thousand dollars.”Take a look at the payback period of your customer acquisition costsKevin shares how brands are becoming mindful of a campaign’s payback period as they look to save costs –“Right now, especially in the SaaS space, a lot of companies are looking at their payback period – (which is) how much money they spend to acquire the customer and how long it takes for those customers to spend enough money with the company so that they can recoup the acquisition cost. So, companies are looking to shorten the payback period – which basically means that they try to acquire the same customers with less money. (For this) you may want to look at which campaigns drive the most customers. Where do we spend more than we get back? That sounds like something you would do anyway all the time, but it's not true. (That’s because) for the last maybe 15 years, the default has been growth – to just get in as many customers as possible. You still want to look at the payback period, but it's not the deciding factor.But now, it's a deciding factor. So, companies are trimming the edges of their ad budgets. They're trimming the fat and trying to reduce the spend it takes to get customers.”Reduce spend on your branded keywordsKevin advises reducing the budget on branding during tough market conditions –“One of the best practices that I noticed is to just reduce the spending on your brand. Companies spend a lot of money on bidding on their brands in Google Ads. The margins or the net benefits of that are not always that great.I think now is a good time to see, – hey, what happens when if we stop bidding on our brands? Or at least what happens when we cut our brand spend in half? How many customers do we still get versus how many would we lose potentially?”Outsource more by hiring freelancersEli advises hiring freelancers or contractors instead of full-time people —“If you've been told that you have a hiring freeze, instead of not hiring people, just hire freelancers.I don't think there's a chance that the companies that went through the big layoffs, Google, Facebook, and all the other companies are not hiring freelancers or contractors. There are still jobs that need to be done and unfortunately, they need to cut full-time employees to make the street, their budget, and CFOs happy, – but they still need someone to do it. So they shift that budget over to freelancers. When you agree to hire a freelancer and you make the pitch for a freelancer, remind them that it would be ideal if you would actually have a full-time employee – and this is a compromise to have the freelancer. So hiring freelancers, even if they cost more money, that's my favorite hack in a tight budget environment.”Focus on impact and efficiencyKevin advises brands should double down on what is already working for them. He explains how you can apply this across customer segments, resource management, target geography, market segment, and verticals –“Biggest hacks for doing more with less is just to refocus on what works and refocus on impact and efficiency.So what that means is – you can ask everyone to track their time, or you can just do the work yourself. See where your time goes, and then just do less of the things that don't yield results. You can adopt that philosophy as a single person, as a team, or as a whole company. It's basically refocusing the organization and refocusing the team.This can also apply to customer segments. Many companies maybe start with an SMB focus, then go up to mid-market and eventually enterprise – and (these changes) shift focus, costing a lot of money in efficiency. Maybe now is the right time to say, – hey, let's refocus on our most profitable market segment, or let's focus on just one market segment.It can also be geography,  where you say, – let's not focus on 30 countries, but maybe five.Or it can be a vertical where if you serve several industries, you just go down to one. My favorite story on focus is about Peter Theil and PayPal.So at PayPal, Peter Theil was known for having a very extreme dedication to focus, and he would expect every employee to have a number one top priority. He would only talk to employees about their number one priority, nothing else mattered.It's a great example of how you force a team, an organization, or a company to really just focus on the most important thing and make sure that that works flawlessly.”Pay in advance for critical tools you needEli advises saving money on important marketing tools by purchasing their annual or long-term contracts. He also shares a hack on negotiating a retainer price –“Layoffs may or may not have happened, but you can prepare for it. So one thing that I've always done when I'm afraid that the money might disappear is I'll go and pay in advance for things.So, Ahrefs is our sponsor over this episode and I'm sure that Ahrefs would love it if you would buy their annual plan if you're currently on a monthly. I'd recommend you get their enterprise – it's an awesome tool, especially if you compare it to the hundreds of thousands of dollars you'd have to spend on unnamed enterprise SEO tools.But their enterprise is $10,000 a year if you pay annually, whereas it's a little bit under $12,000 a year if you pay monthly. Now, suddenly if your CFO says, – oh, we can't afford a thousand dollars a month anymore for this tool, or show me how having this tool provides us value, – that's not a conversation you want to have. So if the budget's there, you can point out to the CFO, – oh, I'd like to pay in advance and save us a couple of thousand dollars.Do that with all the tools you have that you're afraid might get pulled out of your toolbox by paying for them in advance or signing longer contracts.On the flip side, if there's a tool you're not really using but you'd like to use and you think it's too expensive, this is the time when you can go back to the software, person, or vendor and say – I have less budget this year and cannot afford to pay this price. There may be retention pricing available if you just ask for it. Obviously, you have to be prepared to cut it off and say, well, if I can't afford it, I will not pay for it.So, just make your stack more efficient. Pay for the tools you need. Get better pricing. Pay annually. Get those contracts out there.”Repurpose the top 20% of your contentKevin advises brands to focus on high-performing content and repurpose them –“A great way to do more marketing with less budget is to just repurpose content.A lot of times marketers don't think enough about what actually drives results. And there's this interesting 80-20 rule that you find in most marketing data – where maybe 20% of your blog articles drive 80% of email signups or 20% of landing pages give 80% of leads, right?One good thing you can do is to just look at or think about how can we repurpose these 20% of our content or pages. Maybe you can create a video out of one of your best-converting blog articles, or maybe you make a podcast episode or maybe you post about it on social or you send it as an email campaign, or like a drip sequence.So content repurposing is one of my hacks. And you want to focus on the few things that already work well, and then think about how can you squeeze more juice out of the fruit.”Show Notes* How the culture at Payal gave importance to focus - Quora answer by Keith RaboisJoin the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.We have opened a paid assistant position to get help with the pre and post-production of this podcast – so do reach out to us for more details.Also, if you have any good ideas on how to hack a budget, save money, or look better in recessionary times – share them in the comments!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on:* Spotify* Apple PodcastsAfter Bing and Microsoft both announced new AI chatbots in Search, Marketers are worried that search engines won’t send traffic to websites anymore. However, what if sites receive less but more qualified traffic?Tune in to learn how we think about AI chatbots in Search, what search arbitrage is and whether users really change their habits.Thanks for tuning in,Eli & Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on:* Spotify* Apple PodcastsToday we talk about building and thriving a consulting business based on our combined SEO and consulting experience of over 10 years.In this episode of Contrarian Marketing, we cover:* How to transition into a consultant role* What makes one a good consultant* Why Neil Patel Digital works as an SEO brandKey Takeaways* Many people do not understand SEO and accept mediocre work as ‘quality output’. Thus, real SEO experts can use this gap as a good opportunity to grow in the SEO industry.* Focus on gaining experience in-house or at an agency before venturing out as a consultant.* Work on creating a strong referral network by building a trustworthy personal brand among your peers and clients.* Learn to pitch and sell your expertise with confidence* The best way to get promoted is to make a switchThere is potential in consulting for the SEO industryEli shares why there is a huge untapped potential in the SEO industry for talented experts and where the opportunity lies:“I don't know him (Neil Patel). I don't know his practices. I've never worked with him. But I do think that Neil Patel and Neil Patel Digital, in particular, demonstrate the massive upside there is in this (SEO) industry. He was recently on the My First Million podcast, and I think he said they do over a hundred million dollars a year in revenue – most of it from SEO. That's the potential.There are so many companies out there that don't understand SEO.”He also shares his experience with PRNewswire on how people accept not-so-great quality output, and true experts can tap onto this potential to deliver great work:“I remember PR Newswire approached me pre-Covid about this webinar and they were charging  $900 to go to this webinar and – they sold it to their customers. There are so many people out there that don't understand marketing. They don't understand SEO.Then, they look at Neil Patel, PR Newswire, and all these other agencies who may not do the kind of work that we think is of high quality, but everyone else thinks it's of high quality. And to me, that's the potential of this industry.”The key is to build a strong personal networkKevin shares how his 12+ experience in the SEO industry via his job, speaker opportunities, and personal branding efforts helped him successfully transition into an independent consultant role:“How people perceive you, whether you're an agency or a consultant, is incredibly important, and I have never thought about it more than right now.  I have been active in this industry for 12-13 years now. I've worked even at Shopify and did things outside of SEO, but I'm still recognized as an SEO (expert).But having the blog, having spoken at conferences and all that kind of stuff has contributed massively. I was lucky to get a full portfolio of clients before I even announced that I am a consultant now.So, a strong network helped immensely. People were so kind to connect me with clients and all that kind of stuff.”Eli agrees by sharing his personal experience about the power of sales and having a strong network:“There was a company I talked to recently, which I was referred to by someone I sat next to at my very first job 16 years ago. So the longer time you spend within companies, the bigger network you'll build, and some of the best deals that I have signed have come from my former coworkers – they've referred me, and they've been at these companies. You have to build that expertise within your network.I don't have a blog, but I wrote a book, which really helps in closing deals.But it's so much more important that you have a network that can refer things to you, whether it's investors or friends, or past coworkers or past clients – that's where you're going to get so many things. And I've met some terrible consultants who do just fine because they have that network.”First, get hands-on experience in the industry Kevin also advises that its crucial to get legit experience in your industry before getting into consultation:“You and I were both fans of Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting and how he approaches this practice. One of the things that he preaches is to be out there to build a brand, put content out, and demonstrate your expertise.I think that's something that you need to do to send out, and build a reputation, and this is also something that needs to be built on (top of) experience, right?So if somebody would really ask me – Hey, I'm a college grad, should I become a consultant?I would actually say, – No, that's a stupid idea. You need to gain experience first. As somebody new to the industry, I think you need to learn from others first – for which an agency or in-house is your best bet.”Be confident about yourself and your workEli shares his experience of an encounter with a confident consultant and how being confident helps build trust and close deals.“I have seen some fantastic consultants and I'd say the thing I learned the most from is a guy named Aaron Sheer, who unfortunately passed away many years ago. So I was working at this startup and Aaron Sheer was our SEO consultant.He did well – like he was a consultant for eBay and Zappos. The one thing I really learned from him was his level of confidence.So he would come in, and the team would say – should we do ‘A’ or ‘B’?And he would say – you should definitely do ‘A’, and they would say – how do you know?And he'd say – you're gonna do ‘A’, like, this is my experience. He was super confident about it.And then it failed. ‘A’ totally didn't work, we got less traffic.And he'd say, –  well, there was a 99% chance it would. Unfortunately, it fell into the 1%. I'm super confident my recommendation was right. I'm never wrong, but it happens to be that I don't know everything. I'm not Google. And I learned that confidence from him.And that's what people look for in consultants – an external expert who's not doing what those internal experts are doing for them, or they don't have an internal team, and they're looking for an expert to really weigh in and give them a point of view and not someone who's just going to be doing busy work.The real upside is saying – I will solve your SEO problems.I learned that from Aaron Sheer – he was super confident. I don't know whether he helped us grow or didn't help us grow, but everyone certainly thought he helped us grow.I think the most important thing for building a successful consulting career is really understanding sales. And it's not just about whether you can close the deal, but can you continue to have that confidence and direct your clients that they want to keep working with you because you know what you're talking about.”Build a good reputation among your peersKevin shares how your reputation in the industry is important for making it as a consultant:“I think putting yourself out there is a critical element.As you said, the network, and sales (are important), but then being visible in the industry and being perceived as someone in the industry who is good (is crucial too). I think it's often underestimated, but SEO is actually a smaller industry than most people would think – people know each other and people are getting asked.So, you have to make sure that your peers respect and appreciate you.”What can you learn from Neil Patel's brand?Eli thinks that the SEO industry’s black-box nature makes it necessary to build a reputation that instills trustworthiness and expertise:“I don't think SEO's that hard or differentiated –  it's pretty basic.I think if you were to do SEO for CNN, or if I were to do SEO for CNN or Neil Patel would do SEO for CNN or Rand Fishkin – the results and the recommendations would be very similar. The problem with the SEO industry is that it's hard. You have to trust. It's a black box.We really don't know exactly how this is going to work. It's not like paid marketing – I spent this money, I returned this amount, should I spend more? I don't know, but I will spend more and I'll find out.You don't have any of those insights (for SEO), so it comes across as how confident are you in the ability of the person hired to give the right recommendations.”Kevin adds further about Neil Patel’s ability to retain clients:“I think the art is to not only get in through a really good pitch but then also keep clients and keep delivering. That's always where, where I would love to just peek behind the scenes for once.”Eli also mentions how the SEO industry mostly re-packages data from SEO tools as recommendations, and how Neil Patel’s ownership of tools like Answer the Public, and UberSuggest act as trump cards in sales pitches:“There was a company I talked to last week that raised this insane amount of money and they're using an agency. I showed them Ahrefs, and they said – oh, our agency uses it. We don't have access to it.I'm like, why wouldn't you just buy a trust for $120 a month? You don't need to spend $5,000 a month with a kid doctor. So, the data's there – their agency is packaging it and telling them what a fantastic job they're doing because they're using Ahrefs. There are basic tools within our industry – Ahrefs, Semrush, SimilarWeb, etc, and everyone else is just packaging and representing it.Neil Patel Digital owns some awesome tools, like, he has UberSuggest and they bought Answer the Public. So they have some of their tools, but they bought them, they didn't create them. I'm certain that when they go into a pitch, they are like –  these are your keywords, this is your content gap.So the whole industry is relying on the same tools and the same data, making the same recommendations – it's just how you sell it.”The best way to get a promotion is still switching companiesWe asked you via our LinkedIn post to share what you think is the best way to get a promotion. Interestingly, switching companies was said to be the most effective method to make your way ahead on the ladder.Eli supports this insight by sharing his example of getting promoted:“I tried to switch companies when I was moving to Singapore and I got a new job. I was at Survey Monkey at the time, and when I went to give notice, they convinced me to stay and I got a 40 raise. So, I got a 3-level massive promotion, and it was completely unintentional. I wasn't trying to negotiate it for it, but I do think this is valid.I think that companies don't necessarily appreciate their employees until they're gone and you could threaten to leave and get that promotion and you force them to really say – oh, we do appreciate you, and are willing to pay you more, willing to promote you. Or we could just go to another company who will appreciate us – I think that's the sad reality.With the layoffs, people might be scared to ask for promotions, but the truth is, the employees that are still within a company, they're even more valuable.I also always looked at other people and watched them rise in the company and they went from junior to senior pretty quickly. They seemed to have it all together. And the thing is, they were good at positioning how to do what they're doing.”Kevin adds further how one should work towards being ‘seen’ by their managers:If you think that you have proof to back that (your promotion) up, it's totally fine to go and ask for a promotion. As you said, you might not get a big promotion as you did in 2019, but I also agree that just because layoffs are happening, that does not mean that no one should get a promotion or that you should not get a promotion.I think the art is in making the case well and having proof and having a fit with your manager. Meaning knowing what your manager wanted in the first place and then delivering.You also don't want to just do stuff, but you want to make sure your manager sees it, your manager's manager sees it, and other people see it too.”We discuss a few more views shared around getting promoted in our previous episode 9: Marketing predictions for 2023.Show NotesBook recommendations:* Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice by Alan Weiss – the book shares a time-tested model for creating a flourishing consulting business, while incorporating and focusing on the many dynamic changes in solo and boutique consulting, coaching, and entrepreneurship.* The Trusted Advisor by David Maister –  learn how to build credibility, respect, and trustworthiness with clients and prospects.* Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell by  Eric Schmidt – the book shares management lessons from legendary business executive and coach Bill Campbell. He mentored some of the most successful modern entrepreneurs and has played an important role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit.Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.Would you like us to host ‘The Contrarian Marketing Conference?’What should it look like? – Should it be online or in person? Recorded or live?Reach out to us and let us know whether there should be some summit, conference, or mastermind – happy to take your input!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on:* Spotify* Apple PodcastsToday we discuss the big Marketing themes of 2023:* The impact of AI on marketing* Social media platforms that could replace TikTok* Trends in attribution and privacyKey Takeaways* AI, especially products by OpenAI, will have a significant impact on marketing.* AI Content still requires editors to produce good quality content. Writers should upskill themselves to write better than what AI Content generates.* YouTube and Meta can potentially fill the gap if TikTok gets banned.* Blunders caused by Google Analytics 4 may flourish new attribution products in the market that provide a complete data picture.* Apple’s App Tracking Transparency and GDPR will impact users’ privacy and business models of performance marketing solution providers.How AI impacts marketingKevin thinks AI is hyped and has the potential to significantly impact marketing:“If I had to make some definite statements for this year, first of all, I 100% expect Google to launch a chatGPT competitor. I'm very surprised that they haven't reacted to a lot of this stuff yet. Other search engines like Neva and Perplexity.ai have already started to embed a chatGPT-like feature in the search engine and it looks really good.I'm not saying Google is doomed, but I expect them to react and publish something that makes them compete directly with OpenAI. Then there is Bing, which is also set to embed ChatGPT in Bing search. I also think we will see a lot more multimodal AI happening.I also think that we're going to see some companies build a generative AI video feature where they show you a video that stitches together some of the best moments from other videos about a specific topic – I call it the video summary.”Eli shares a contrarian view on how AI is not going to change much as it has always been here for quite a long time and is expensive:“Google Assistant is like ChatGPT, except they can't write papers. I also think from an AI standpoint, it can do things on video, it can identify things, stitch things together, and it's just going to be an improvement on something that already exists.I'm going to give a real-time answer that AI is very expensive from a computing standpoint.So right now, open AI is free. There are free tools to play around with it. I think once the doors get shut and it starts costing a lot of money from a computing standpoint, I don't think it will be as simple for people to do. There's a reason people pay subscriptions for Jasper and all these other AI tools. AI is expensive, and it's very expensive.So I think AI's here, it's been here. Not necessarily new, and I don't think it changes much.”Is AI content worth the hype?Kevin shares how AI content will increase the demand for editors and writers with domain expertise:“You still need a human editor to fix spelling errors, grammar errors, and to just make the thing pop a bit more.We've seen some big companies experimenting with and launching AI content like CNET, and Yahoo has started to experiment with AI content. I'm not talking about the type of AI content Associated Press has been publishing since 2015 where they launched about 1700 pages with AI content that are only two or three sentences long. This is not the type of content I'm talking about.I'm talking about long-form content and for that to come from an AI, it's just not yet ready to be published raw. It still needs editing, grooming, and some maintenance.”He further adds how mediocre writers may face a challenge from AI content if they do not upskill:“I think this (AI Content) is the biggest threat to Upwork and Fiverr right now. A huge swath of writers that write very mediocre content will just go away.Editors will gain in value and will be in high demand, but I think the writers that are writing basically on a level or maybe below the level of what ChatGPT can produce today, I think they really need to retrain and look for other work because they're not going to have a future.”Eli thinks that AI content lowers the bar for what content will cost, and bad quality content gets ignored even today anyway:“One goes to other countries that are a lot cheaper to pay writers and the quality might not be as good. You pay like $5 a piece of content, $50 a piece of content.Now it's basically free – so there's just too much content out there.There is a huge use case for AI content – writing up the news, and sports scores, and doing financial reporting. You can just write an article about the latest earnings report that extracts the numbers from the earnings report and puts it into a blog post. It's a great use of resources rather than having some analyst in some country, and you're paying 50 bucks to put it together.So I think AI content is just a tool. I agree with you that it just needs to be groomed and improved. But I don't think like there's doom, and gloom for real writers and copyeditors out there.This is a research tool. It allows people to gather information and produce information at a far cheaper rate.Also, if it'll be cheaper or free, then people will ignore all this useless content, which you're probably ignoring anyways if it's written by low-quality writers.So it doesn't change much – it just moves things around on the big chess board of life.”Listen to our dedicated episode on AI Content - tool or toy?Who steps in Tiktok’s shoes when it gets banned?In our 6th episode of Contrarian Marketing Podcast, we discussed the future of TikTok and if it can replace Google Search. In this theme, we discuss which platform can replace it if it gets banned:Kevin thinks YouTube can take over TikTok’s share of users:“In my mind, the platform that's most likely to take over TikTok is actually YouTube.They have a comparative user base, and they have shorts, which I think is actually a pretty good product. They have a lot of content and they share revenue with creators. So I think the most likely one is YouTube.But I also think that several platforms can gain at the same time from TikTok going away simply because people spent their time in other ways. So it's not just a single winner, but actually multiple ones.”Eli thinks Facebook and Instagram would tap into TikTok’s share of users:“I think it becomes Instagram because it's already there. The video's already there, the concept's already there, and Facebook's amazing at stealing ideas. They're just going to take all the best stuff from TikTok and do it.But one thing I would add is –  not enough people talk about when it comes to Facebook is that how Facebook is the best place to buy and sell stuff. There is so much untapped potential there. Facebook doesn't monetize that. They monetize it if you pay or ship through Facebook. But otherwise, this is a peer-to-peer transaction, and it has so much potential there. So yes, it's not really a social network, but it's the best place to do this kind of thing. Craigslist doesn't really exist for this anymore.I think Facebook gets revived a little bit this year, especially if TikTok goes away.”Kevin also shares his thoughts about where Twitter stands in 2023:“I think there's a massive opportunity right now for another social network to come and finish Twitter off, but there's also no great alternative. Elon Musk has promised all sorts of improvements – but I haven't seen any reduction in bots. I've seen a lot of improvements in speed, which nobody cares about. I don't think anybody ever complained about Twitter being too slow. So I don't think the product is advancing as he promised it would.So I think it's not in a good spot and the time is really good and ripe for a competitor to come along.”The underdog problem: attributionEli and Kevin share their thoughts on the new Google Analytics 4 and potential trends around attribution:Eli thinks GA alternatives may use this opportunity of blunder caused by GA-4:“I think there's going to be a lot of tools that are going to start filling the gap because if Google's struggling users to move over from Universal Analytics to GA-4, there's room for other tools to come out there. The analytics market has been really small now.”Kevin agrees and further adds:“I don't see competition for Google Analytics, but what I do see is that the product cannibalizes itself. I think that they will transport or transfer a lot of features from Universal Analytics to GA-4.I think that is also an opportunity for somebody else to come along and present something that is also free or at least has a free tier, is as extensive as Google Analytics, maybe privacy first, and also very customizable – and this poses a real threat to Google.”Eli shares how important to get the complete data picture, something that Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics might fail to provide:“Ahrefs, our sponsor, help you get that whole data picture. It may not be accurate, but then again, GA may not be accurate too because of privacy issues. So I think there's a lot of opportunity here. Analytics tools like GA, and Adobe analytics – really look at that internal data. But if internal data's not accurate and it's super expensive from a resource standpoint, you could probably get a good sense of how things are working when you use a tool like Ahrefs, SimilarWeb, or SEMrush.(It helps in) understanding which channels are working for you, where you should put more money, and where you should pull back.”The impact of privacy on Marketing in 2023Kevin thinks there will be a big tectonic shift in privacy thanks to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT). This may also result in a potential clash with Alphabet:“We've already seen ATT throwing a major wrench into attribution in general, destroying many billions of dollars for Facebook and for other platforms. Then, Apple themselves kind of stepped into that gap – where they restrict data, which makes it much harder for other platforms to provide value to advertisers.I think this has shown us the power of hardware manufacturers and hardware providers on a whole different level. Any platform that provided performance marketing solutions –  I think there's going to be a big change (for them).I'm very interested and curious about how Alphabet will actually respond to that. Will they follow something similar or actually provide something different in order to grab more market share from advertisers against Apple?So I think those two companies are going to clash a little bit when it comes to privacy.”Eli thinks GDPR, and more nations adopting it is a bigger threat to tech giants when it comes to privacy:“The really important thing to call out is that it's not really up to them, it's up to governments. So GDPR was a fundamental shift in tracking and data. I remember when I was at SurveyMonkey, we spent a year implementing Google Analytics premium and spent like $108,000, and got it implemented a week before GDPR.So we get this thing going, we bring all this data, and then GDPR comes out and you can't track anymore. So it blows up the whole thing. We can't see the European continent, we have no idea what our data is because people have to opt in and by the time they opt-in it becomes a direct visit. So GDPR and laws like GDPR are having a huge impact on what companies like Apple, Google, and then everybody tracking any sort of data can do.Going back to the Ahrefs – in a privacy world where there are no first-party data, nothing is shared, and all you have is estimates. I don't know necessarily where Ahrefs gets their data, but they're using AI to estimate things – so that's a better bet.I think other countries are going to imitate GDPR – they will look at this and say, – okay, cool, this is like a great way to make tech companies pay taxes. They weren't already paying, so we'll pass a law that they're guaranteed you're going to break.”Show Notes* Agency SEO skills matrix by Tom Critchlow – SEO MBA* Marketing conference recommendations:* Pubcon – Pubcon 2023* SEOktoberfest - 2022* SMX Munich – SMX Munich 2023* Online marketing rock stars in Hamburg - About Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.Let us know what else we should have on our radar for 2023 in the comments!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com

This episode is available on:* Spotify* YouTube* Apple PodcastsToday we discuss if ‘work from home’ as a concept is truly beneficial for the dynamics of employees and managers in an organization.Thanks to the pandemic, many organizations switched to work-from-home, but some of them, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, etc., pull employees back to the office. They have realized that in-person interaction may outweigh the many stated advantages of a WFM culture.✅Kevin says working from home enables an employee to take control of their time for a better work-life balance.⛔Eli says working from home limits an employee’s growth within an organization and beyond.In this episode of Contrarian Marketing, we discuss:* Impact of work from home on today’s workers* How work from home impacts the various players of an economy* Tips on how to work from homeShoutout to our sponsor, Ahrefs!If you’re looking for ways to drive more SEO traffic, you need to take a look at Ahrefs.Ahrefs allows you to find and fix technical errors, keyword gaps with your competitors and internal link opportunities.Many of the best SEOs in the game use Ahrefs, and so do Eli and I. It’s a key tool in our work; we’ve been using it for many years with some of the best tech companies in the world.Check out ahrefs.com and sign up for free!Key Takeaways* Working from home is great for individuals who are disciplined and can work independently. Consecutively, one should work on these skills to truly ace working from home.* Companies should choose between in-office or WFH culture but not mix since that could lead to remote employees being left behind in their careers.* Young workers and recent graduates should explore in-office culture for better opportunities and professional development.* Organizations should understand the mechanics of working from home to build or transition into a successful remote-first company.* Organizations should explore repurposing the cost savings from adopting remote work for employee benefits.Kevin’s take: Work from home enables employees for a better work-life balanceKevin states how working from home has significantly cut down his commute time:“My commute is now five seconds as opposed to over an hour. When I lived back in San Francisco in the Bay Area, I had to take the train from Palo Alto to the city which took me over an hour one way. The time on that train was not very productive. You can maybe answer a couple of emails or do some things, but you're constantly interrupted and oftentimes you cannot sit down - so it comes with all this stress.Now, I wake up, make coffee, make breakfast, and go into the office. I work a bunch of hours and then I go to the gym, and then I'm done for the day. I'm saving over two hours that I used to have to spend on commuting.”Eli shares a different take by giving an example of how he used his commute time productively:“I use my commute time effectively to listen to audiobooks, and read physical books, and podcasts. That's the stuff I don't do right now (during work from home) - I hardly ever read. I hardly ever listen to other podcasts cause I don't have that time.There's no buffer time. To be fair, I love working from home - I love that flexibility, but I don't know that it's necessarily good for everyone. The idea of working from home is permanent and being granted to people actually takes away something that many people benefit from.”Kevin states that a ‘Hybrid’ arrangement, where companies have employees working full-time remotely or in-office, is the worst form of WFM culture:“If some people work remotely and others in the office, then the people working remotely don't have the same access to other people to build the same relationships. They're not as present, not as visible, and that is a losing position.I remember when I worked at Atlassian, some people were allowed to work from home completely remotely on a full-time basis. But these people were always passed for promotions. They didn't get a lot of visibility or the best projects.So, in my mind, it's an either/decision - either everyone can work from home or maybe contractors can, but full-time people should ideally not work from home.”Kevin also highlights the ‘silent layoffs’ culture, where organizations tend to misuse the growing WFH trend for laying off employees:“A lot of big tech companies hired in the pandemic and now that revenues are coming back to baseline after the pandemic, they still have these people. Now, they have to reduce their headcount, for which there's no way around.So, some companies are forcing people to return to offices as a way to reduce their headcount because they know that not everybody can come back or will come back - they moved during the pandemic, bought a house somewhere else, moved to their parents, etc. Now they're forced to come back and there's just no way that this is going to work.So they're quitting and it's good for the companies - they saved their severance because the employee decided to not come back to the office, which was originally stated in the contract.”Kevin agrees with Eli’s take about the need for young workers to get some exposure to in-office culture:“I will acknowledge that there is probably a difference for certain people. I think it makes sense for young people in their twenties and college freshers to go to the office because they want to be around and meet other people.”He also mentioned how working parents may find it difficult to cope with focusing on actual work with the added task of managing kids at home.On the other hand, remote work actually increases equality. For example, people with disabilities or caretakers now have a better way to work or exposure to better opportunities.In the end, Kevin shares how he thinks companies need to rethink their workplace culture if they have to adopt remote work:“I think companies just have to change their mindset, right? You cannot operate the same way when everybody works from home.At Shopify, we went through that whole learning curve. We had these regular meetups once a quarter. Sometimes more often where we would spend all the time forging relationships, spending time together, and getting to know each other because trust is one of the most important ingredients when it comes to baking a high-performing team.”Eli’s take: working from home limits employee growth within an organizationEli believes that working from home and various tools that enable it are changing the lifestyles of workers such that it forces people to stay constantly online. Today, one places unsustainable expectations of being instantly responsive. Although it's great for work, it may not be ideal for one’s work-life balance.People may choose to work from home, but that might not be the best option for them.He mentions how many employees are not able to forge relationships with other teammates who tend to sit in other countries with different time zones. In-office culture helps one collaborate better because people know each other and what ticks them:“I went to this company’s team get-together that is conducted four times a year. They pick a city in America, and they all gather together - there were like 200 people in the room. So, I went to their marketing gathering - and they didn't know each other!In theory, they were on Slack, they were a fully remote company. They did stuff - a billion-dollar company, but they didn't really know each other.I've never been in a situation where like I didn't know my teammates. I maybe didn't always like them, and maybe didn't know everything about them, but I knew what made them tick. I knew if I really need to like talk to someone, I can be like - let's go grab a coffee downstairs, or let's go have lunch together.”Eli also suggests how providing flexibility (by, let’s say, allotting 2 days of WFM per week) and  ‘forcing one to go to the office’ may actually be good because otherwise, one may never choose in-office to gain its benefits.“I think some people need to be forced to go because when you're not forced to go, then some people will never choose in-office. I think being forced to go is a good thing.There's this stat I read  - women that have children at home, if they're not forced to go to the office, they may choose not to go because it's difficult to go. But if they're forced to go, again, it's not ideal, but they make those accommodations to go to the office. And when they make those accommodations to go to the office, because again, they had to, they are open now to more promotions and more business networks.I think about how much consulting I've done with my former coworkers. I built that network by being in the office with them. I don't know that I would've built it virtually.”He further adds how WFM shields one from the real conversations that happen at in-office meetings:“When I worked at SurveyMonkey, they had an office in Portland and another office in Ottawa and we'd do a lot of work with those offices.But once the video conference was turned off, that meeting continued. You just cut out those other people, and when it comes to building those relationships and knowing who to promote and knowing who does a good job - they're not a part of that conversation. That conversation happened with the video off.”In the end, Eli states how motivated people are gonna work hard regardless of whether they're home or in the office. “Goldman Sachs forced their employees back into the office.The CEO said the reason that they're forcing the employees back to the office is because that's who Goldman Sachs is.The people - they graduate college and work 90 hours a week at Goldman Sachs because they want to be forced into that brutal lifestyle and build those connections and learn, not because they want to work 90 hours a week on Zoom.So they felt their differentiator for hiring is to make basically hell years of forcing employees to learn quickly and how to become whenever they become a Goldman Sachs.If they didn't, then they were just another bank with recent grads on Zoom, so there was no differentiator for them. So, I thought that was fascinating.”How does working from home impact the economy?Eli shares a CNN source that mentions how few people are eating out since people are working from home.“So in California Avenue, the second downtown in Palo Alto, there's a parking lot behind all the restaurants. I was never able to get a spot there anytime during the daylight hours because all those restaurants were always super popular and there weren't enough spots.Now, whenever I go there, there's, they're like two-thirds empty. No workers are going out to lunch during the day. No workers are going anywhere. They're not going out to coffee. So I think that's bad for the economy. I think people sitting at home, they're not spending money is bad for the economy.”Kevin shares a different take that working from home means people get to choose to opt for a better lifestyle for themselves:“I'm not sure if it's a net negative (to work from home). You also have a lot less pollution from people, less crowded trains and streets. You have a lot more action in the suburbs as a result. Also, people just move out of the cities and meet new people.On the other hand, companies have access to larger talent pools.G2 has two floors of a large office building here in downtown Chicago - and that's some money you have to pay every month. It’s attractive to save that and repurpose it, where you can pay that back to the employees. At Shopify, we got annual grants for buying stuff like desks or chairs, gym memberships, and other stuff to make work from home easier.So I think that money can be repurposed for a lot of good things.”Does a work-from-home culture leave the essential workers behind?Eli highlights how we should separate the WFM discussions concerning tech and non-tech workers:“First of all, it seems unfair the tech workers can be home.I was in California when the pandemic started and there was this attitude of - why can't everyone just stay home?Whereas other places, especially essential workers - had to go to work. My wife is a teacher and she was home teaching on Zoom. That is very hard. How do you control a class on Zoom? The parents are off in the other room doing their zoom calls, and the kids are making fart noises on Zoom, destroying the whole class.So essential workers, grocery store workers, doctors, and teachers - need to be present. And suddenly there's this unfair thing - they still have to commute. So that’s that part of it - the unfairness. But I think that there are companies that certainly pay it back, like the tech companies, as they want to retain these smart employees.But there are other companies that maybe went work from home, and now they're looking at their cost savings - this is the employee's responsibility and they're going to have to take care of this themselves. I'll give them $10 a month for their lunch stipend, but they're saving all that money on rent and the internet.So there is a total divide in the economy. I feel the sudden shift in the pandemic did something that we weren't really ready for. I don't know that we should ever be ready for it.Maybe things change and we get back to a better equilibrium on who should be working from home and how should they should be working from home.”Tips to productively work from homeWorking from home provides one an opportunity to own their day and schedule as per what works best.Here are some tips shared by Kevin and Eli:* Block your calendars by creating separate slots for deep work, meetings, leisure time, etc.* Plan the top 3 tasks you want to do the next day in advance.* Use tools that help control distractions during work hours and track time.* Start your day with a big task since you have more energy.* Get dressed to get in the zone of work. It helps differentiate between a workday and a weekend.* Prioritize tasks that require thinking and sharp execution in the morning.* Leave the house every day - maybe work from coffee shops, try to meet new people.Shownotes* Book recommendation:* Deep Work - rules for focused success in a distracted world by Cal Newport: learn how professionals can prioritize work productively in the age of distractions caused by social media, the internet, home, etc.* Super Founders - what data reveals about billion-dollar startups by Ali Tamaseb: know about the patterns, backgrounds, and trajectories of successful billion-dollar businesses based on data-driven research.* McKinsey article - 58% work from home at least once a week, but 35% work from home five days a week.* The CEO of LinkedIn, in December 2022, said that right now, 50% of job applications go to remote jobs.Join the conversationSubscribe to the newsletter for a free summary, key takeaways, and community content once a week.Do you have some work-from-home tips to share? – do let us know in the comments!Enjoyed this episode? – Subscribe to Contrarian Marketing on Spotify/Apple podcasts/Youtube to listen to past episodes and get notified of upcoming releases.Thank you!Eli and Kevin This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.contrarianmarketingpodcast.com